 Right. Hi, everyone. Welcome to a very special live episode of 420 Grams, brought to you by NewsClick. Now, many of you who are active viewers or regular viewers of this very popular sports show, 420 Grams, may be wondering what is this random woman doing on the episode today. For somebody who does not really follow a lot of Indian sports specifically, Indian football, this, I think, there can't be a better opportunity for me to learn more about what is going on right now with this FIFA ban of the All India Football Federation. Let me quickly introduce myself before we get into the topic today. My name is Priyatta Rajvasi, and I am an independent journalist. I have recently started my own YouTube channel where I primarily do news shows, explainers, ground reports, interviews, primarily on politics and national affairs. But I've started to venture into sports, focusing more on women in sports. I also do a live session or a live news session on a platform called Glance Live. And incidentally, today, I had Siddhant Anay, who, of course, you all know from 420 Grams. He was the guest on my show today. And we, of course, discussed this FIFA ban of the AIFF. And that is exactly what we are going to be discussing on this program as well. Let me quickly introduce our panel today, our really amazing panel today. Sharda Ugra, of course, is someone who I consider one of India's best sports writers and sports journalist. She has been on my show as well, and we have had discussions on various sports topics. And of course, you know Siddhant Anay, who is a journalist with news click, and of course, the creator of 420 Grams as well. Now what does this ban, this FIFA ban of the AIFF mean for Indian football? Was this ban a long time coming? What is it going to mean for Indian football specifically? Also this upcoming under 17 Women's World Cup, which India was supposed to host in October this year, as the ban stands, unfortunately, India will not be able to host this very important tournament. What does this, is this also an opportunity for the AIFF to finally get their house in order? We all know that arguably over the last several years, when it comes to the administration of the AIFF, it has been in turmoil. So let me start with you, Sharda. The FIFA in their suspension, they say that it is the undue influence from third parties that is the reason that they have banned the AIFF. Now, given the fact that the Supreme Court dictated from May 18th, where Supreme Court actually removed Rafaul Patel as the president of AIFF, and then set up this committee of administrators to govern or to run the AIFF, that according to FIFA's statutes is textbook violation or textbook example of interference of third parties. Given that, do you think this ban was a long time coming? Hi Priyadha, thanks for having me here. And I've been very remiss with you on many of your shows. So thank you again, and I'm putting my hand up. The ban that the FIFA has imposed on the AIFF, it's almost like a threat in a way against any court action, every time you say third party, you assume that it will not involve what are national, wider national institutions like the Supreme Court, is the AIFF sort of an independent diplomatic body? Does it have its own, is it in a country by its health and it has its own diplomatic court? That's what a lot of sports organizations try to do. And FIFA's ban has come about, there are many sort of complicated little gossipy bits and pieces that are there as to how this came about. But FIFA's ban is basically trying to stop the Supreme Court of India, which is the top court in the country, from saying that Indian football is badly organized and this is our step to amend it because we've had a petition before us about it. And that's where we are now. So it's pretty much a bullying tactic in a way and to sort of pretend that FIFA is this great organization with massive excellent governance principles and therefore they are sort of trying to tell the Indian Supreme Court how to do its business in sports. It's a bit much, but I think we expected it was coming. We didn't know the timing. It came suddenly on Monday night, I think. And that's why everyone was thrown off because its impact has been quite damaging on the football players and the football teams and the football structures that are there in the country. The season is just beginning at some point. It's begun virtually. So that's what I asked. We'll come to the implications of this ban, but Siddharth, why do you think that this took, why didn't FIFA immediately ban AIFF if it was about third party interference? Because the Supreme Court of India came in May this year, right? It has been a couple of months since this dictate has come into place. What has happened in these few months that you think was the reason that FIFA finally banned AIFF? Okay, first of all, welcome to 420 grams, Piyata. It's good to have you here and talking about the subject because it's something that we've been talking about consistently, I think for over a decade in various shapes and forms and various sorts of either cases of litigation or cases of elections or other kinds of functionings of the democratic process that is supposedly governing these kind of federations, right? The FIFA ban as such at this time comes, I think, particularly because it's a question of flexing as much muscle as possible. There is an upcoming tournament. Unfortunately, the tournament is one that plays host to perhaps the most fins in the marketing world of global football, which is young girls, right? They are in terms of at least the money spinning cycle that football is, these are the least involved. And yet they are the ones who will immediately suffer the brunt of this ban. If this tournament is either rescheduled again because it's already been rescheduled once because of the pandemic like we were discussing earlier. But more than that for a generation of I think Indian girls who have been kind of brought into a very nascent stage system, very early sort of introduction to how organized sport and football happens. For them, it'll be another major blow and we don't know how things will proceed after that because the minute you start flexing muscle then the other side also wants to flex its own. So if you're taking on the government of India or the Supreme Court of India in some shape, you're threatening to take away a tournament that this country has pledged its taxpayers' money to kind of support, to host, et cetera, et cetera. Because let's face it, not many nations are currently up for, let's say. Spending the money that it takes to host 16 teams from various nations with perhaps limited revenues from let's say television audiences or advertising money and such like. So the timing of it is extremely, extremely unfortunate. I think all parties could have held off for a couple of months. The electoral process as decided by Laxada was likely saying the Supreme Court of India which is the supreme judicial body in this land and is supposed to function according to the laws of this land. The member, yes, FIFA is an international organization but those associations in India that are members of FIFA both directly and indirectly are very much based here. They are registered with the registrar of societies, et cetera, et cetera. So the laws of India and how perhaps the people of India want sport to be governed, particularly in this case the contentious issue is the inclusion of athletes in the actual governing process, right? Voting rights for those who have participated in that sport at a high level because presumably these guys understand best what is required for the sport to grow, right? Yeah. That goes beyond the ambit of an organization that is based on politics and administration. So the timing of it also is- Right, and I also don't want to focus on what exactly has been the problem within the AIFF. Now, for the benefit of our viewers who might not really be very well informed about what exactly has been the problem going on for so many months or arguably years, shall I if I can, if you could just throw some light on what has been the functioning issues within AIFF and when did this problem with FIFA begin? The problems of the AIFF have been there for, like Siddhan said, for over a decade almost, but the ones that came into notice recently are fundamentally about the fact that they did not stage any elections for their national body, for their president and the executive council and all of that for the last two years. So what has happened is that the incumbent president Praful Patil had served a term of 12 years, sort of three, four year terms, and that was it. He had to step down and step aside, but they didn't have elections using maybe COVID as a reason for holding off the elections. That was the first one. And then the fact that they needed their constitution to be aligned to what is the sports code. Now, the sports code in itself belongs to 2011. It was set up to try and bring national sports federations into some kind of pattern of transparency, accountability, having elections because it's tax payer money that they use. So these guys had run on the train of the sports ministry and our taxes for decades. And then the sports code came in. They wanted to make this a bill, this thing by law, but because that couldn't happen, the court said, okay, let this sports code be the basis on which we will now go ahead. And this is where the AIFF is at the moment. It's basically, why didn't you have elections? Why didn't you take on the, adopt the new constitution that includes as the committee of administrators have said, 50% of the voting members have to be former players of a particular standing. And then that was scaled out to 25%. So those are the fundamental issues that are there. But whenever any organization, any sports organization is asked to rework its constitution to sort of use basic best practices in governance, the first thing that gets challenged by the people in power or those who have these posts is the tenure limit and the age and the limit on your age as to how old you can be to hold office. And that's the first thing. So no one's looking at the sport behind it. No one's looking at things that genuinely may be contentious and may have been done in a almost without that much knowledge of how football is supposed to be governed on the ground. All those kind of issues get set aside. Everyone looks at age and tenure limitations. That's all that these guys focus on. And now voting rights is the other issue in contested. They don't want people from the outside athletes to have the right to vote, right? Because then it means that the football players who I must say here are the far more independent minded than any other sports people in the country. They have the most agency fundamentally than any other athletes. You are restraining their right to themselves old office in a way to sort of step in and say, I can do this. I can do this better. Whether they can or they can't, it's different. We don't know. But that's what the issue is. It's about power holding on to power despite the fact that you have done crazy things and terrible things during your tenure of how many ever tournaments. You can't dare to let go. The other thing, you were talking about Piyata, the timing of it, right? And that was a surprising thing of it also. Sure, there could have been a ban in place long, long ago. 2017 actually is when this committee of administrators was actually put into place. So, if there was to be a ban, then we could have done it at the same time because at the same time, the foundation of the third party interference was at the same time, right? It has happened at this stage when FIFA all along has been communicating to us. They sent a team, a joint delegation of the FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation visited India, spoke to all the people involved, right? State associations, COA, et cetera, et cetera. Over the last few days, this conversation has now shifted to one directly between FIFA, it seems, and the government on the other side, which is the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. And essentially even the court today, in its wisdom, has pretty much said that we now hand over this process to, we'll see what happens on Monday. So, and we'll talk again about the subject. But largely, the priority is to host. Monday is when the Supreme Court is going to hear this issue again, yeah. Yeah. Monday is when the Supreme Court will hear it again. Before that, 19th is the last date for filing of nominations for the post of President of the All-India Football Federation. So, by Monday, we shall have a lot more information than we currently have. But what we do know for a fact is that essentially, again, because the narrative has also been better and rightly so, there's no disputing that narrative. There is a World Cup for undisputed women that is happening and that should happen. We all wanted it to happen, right? But so, what they are saying essentially is that in order to host that event, you have taken the decision so far, the court time, the COA has worked, the recommendations from different experts, you have to do all of that. You go back to where it was in 2017, 2014, or the system before that, on the basis of that, you make an election, you elect a body, and then that body can then decide if any of these changes that are suggested, for example, Sharda was talking about bringing the constitution in line with the national sports court, which includes this very important subject of 25%, or some kind of representation for athletes themselves. I would argue it should go even a step further of creating a players council and recognizing official players unions, right? Because those are the bodies that we have seen now evidence of this around the world. In the United States, the players union of, and the United States is a capitalist country that believes it is the leader of the free world, right? So there's no theoretical curtailment of anyone's rights there. So there, the players unions of the men and women have come together to argue or negotiate for a payment settlement that is fair and on equal terms, right? That is a sign of some kind of progress in the system. Here the minute we make steps towards progress, we are threatened by these kinds of bands and such like, right? Which are not even interested. There's no, in all of the communications from FIFA to the AFL, there is no vision of who takes charge, what the plan should be, et cetera, et cetera. The only thing is that elections should be conducted what in what it regards as an independent manner, right? So independent means proper. I just interrupt here Priyadha because you know, look at the cynicism of this that they have put an election that has to be held at in X period of time as priority over a tournament that has to be held, right? And then we cannot bear for this election to be in any way different from what we wanted to be. That's the AFL slash FIFA and that is pretty much the same sort of people on the same side as against the fact that you could actually have held the women's at the 17 World Cup. But because I did want to, I did in fact want to come to that, Onishada because now how is this ban going to work specifically when we talk about this under 17 women's World Cup that India was supposed to host? Is there any information on where this, if not in India, where is this going to be held? Is there any information, any information from FIFA about that? What is the future of this tournament going to be? There doesn't seem to be any information about it. There doesn't seem to be any, literally it's like a bargaining, it's like a negotiating chip and saying this is what we're going to do. Like Siddhant was saying, it's not a high priority tournament, it's not a big money owner. So you can move it whenever you want from this month to that month to that month to this, when you are the other. The other thing that was very unfortunate because they would never do this with men's tournaments or they would never do this with the Qatar World Cup. There is an Indian women's football team, Gokul and Kerala FC that is in Tashkent has to take part in an AFC Asian Football Confederation club championship, like a champion's league amongst the best women's clubs in Asia in that championship. And they are stuck because they don't know whether they can play their first match on the 23rd that's next week. They have no idea that the club chairman is sending out a message to the Prime Minister, he's sending out letters saying, please sort this out, please sort that. This is like the immediate thing that's right ahead. But it's like these people, they don't care. This is literally collateral damage for them. Doesn't matter. You don't play a tournament, we don't care. So that shows you what you say, the neath of the sports administrators of this country, Indian football, that the neath shows every day. People who are going to be worst affected by this right now at least are the women's football heroes. Yeah, absolutely. And they don't care. These guys really don't care. That's why you're seeing it like this. And I could go on, in every sport you'll see this playing itself out. There's no, this is nothing new that we're seeing. It's just a repeated pattern over and over. So if you could talk about how this ban is going to work, we, yeah, we of course spoke about these two tournaments, but how is this ban going to work? How is it going to impact Indian football, you know, as a whole? Siddhant, I think. Honestly, it can have a two-way impact. One is that we can put our heads together, get our act together and figure out an actual roadmap, a plan that works for everyone. Unfortunately, all of this fight, we can blame one person and two people and how they voted and all of that. By the way, before we end this show, I would also like to do a quick, to the extent of the information we have, clarifications of all the rumors and other fake news slash misinformation that is going around on this subject, because it is, it's not like, you know, a lot of people say a lot of things on Twitter and not all of them are true. But anyway, going back, sorry, I have a completely lost track once again. Yeah, how is this ban going to work? And it's caused the impact on Indian football? In the short term, if we make use of this ban as time to restructure, to figure out, like even now, the process that is in place, right? So elections are going ahead, right? As far as the mandate of the committee of administrators is concerned, the Supreme Court has given them an order. The order is that you have to make an election before the date. Those dates are within FIFA-stipulated guidelines. So, which means that we are all on the same page, right? Among the litigants in this case is everyone who is involved, right, except the players. So, state associations are involved, right? The AFF is involved, FSDL is involved as the commercial partner, and of course, the Union of India is involved as... So, with the involvement and acceptance of all parties and lawyers on all parties had agreed, that's why the timing is so problematic, because on the 3rd of August, everyone has agreed that what we will do is we will agree on an electoral college, right? These are the people who will elect the executive committee. That committee will be elected. So, you will have met FIFA's requirements of having an elected body in place. Now, that elected body will be an interim body, which will then take a call on whether this constitution is something we can adopt. It is in the benefit of football or not. If it is, and we all agree, which we are currently saying that we all agree, right? Then that is adopted and new elections take place according to what is stipulated in that constitution. It's fairly simple, right? Everyone had said done and dusted. Then suddenly boom comes a time at the stroke of the midnight hour, right? Yeah. It's a bit shite off. So, unfortunately, what all of the parties involved in this entire process have let on is that they are just using it as a game to achieve their own end goals, which is to determine who has power over this entire case, right? Yeah. And in the immediate future, yes. The women's team, both Gokulam Kerala, who are in Uzbekistan and need to play AFC Cup games, for which, by the way, many of those players are signed for that club, right? Women's football in India, let's be truthful and honest here, right? It's not professional. The contracts that are offered to these players to come and attend for an entire season, okay, maybe they are given support and I'm not criticizing the Gokulam project. I'm just saying that it is not a living wage. You cannot make a career out of playing these tournaments year in, year out by any stretch, right? They are doing it because it gives them the opportunity to play against some of the better countries, better teams in Asia. And go as athletes and as people and all of those, all of the reasons why we are supposed to hold sport to some kind of standard, right? So that completely being destroyed, taken away from them as with these young girls who are meant to represent India at the under 70 World Cup and just 15 other countries who have been preparing for these climatic conditions to travel all the way from wherever they are, et cetera, et cetera. So- Absolutely and given the urgency of this, Sharda, do you think that this ban can be lifted sooner than later or do you think that it is going to be like a long haul sort of a scenario? It depends on what the intention is. I think that it's a suspension first of all, it's not like a proper ban ban in that sense. It's a suspension. It can be changed whenever someone makes up their mind to just write a letter and say, okay, fine. This is what we sorted out and we'll do. Whether it'll happen or not within time for the under 17 World Cup, Women's World Cup, that we don't know because of the fact that the courts got into it and there's a hearing and there's a date and you get into that cycle of sort of legal ranking. I mean, if I may just remind everyone watching that the BCCI case took about two years or three years and they're still trying, they haven't still sorted it out. We are now in from 2014 to now, yeah. It's about seven years, eight years. And they're still stuck, but cricket is going on. So in that sense, if there is an intention to get this underway and for FIFA to kind of say that, okay, let's not sort of crush this tournament. I don't think, actually, now I'm thinking about it. I don't think anyone has even realized that this tournament was there. When all this shenanigans are going on, nails are flying and phone calls are there and people are reaching up to their buddies in higher places. I don't think they even realized this event was happening in October. That's like eight weeks away or eight or 10 weeks away. I don't think it struck them. And now they think, oh, how do we sort this out? This is a little bit of a mess. We can manage with Gokulam Kerala. They can set them to one side, but the great national project of women's empowerment of the under 17 workup, it's like looking at you like some really bad, it's a bad look. So maybe- Yeah, it is a bad look. It will go ahead. I think that they will just feel embarrassed enough to have a go ahead and sort of maybe slide past a few things and see what happened. That's my guess. So that, what do you think? They didn't think- No, absolutely. I mean, and I would even suggest like at this stage, whatever happens on Monday, there's literally nothing stopping the honorable Supreme Court from saying that, okay, we repeat all of this, right? You want to do it a certain way you do it and let them do it how they want to do it and let the World Cup be hosted. And there's nothing stopping from litigants will always exist, right? There will always be people who will have different sides and different stakes in football. It's massive and has a very, very diverse range of stakeholders. So these possibilities to re-engage with the subject of what will happen with the wider thing always can exist later. And I think as a, at the stage we're at right now because, you know, those are the schemes. Yeah, what? Whoever is at fault for all of this, right? Whether it's the COA that has been sitting on rebuilding this constitution since 2017 and has done no work for five years, right? That is also a legitimate argument that no one will refute to ask for extensions on time. I mean, a little bit of no offense to anyone, I'm sure. But a little bit of a lack of, you know, you're dealing with sport after all, a little bit of movement more than the usual might be necessary and kind of pertinent. But okay, what's happened has happened. But why hasn't this happened yet? That, you know, that is at the end of the day that's the question, right? Because no one is interested in doing it. Basically, the existing electorate, if the deciding load is in everyone's interest, if the status is under their control, then why would they move the status? That is essentially it. And it took so long, Priyatta, for this to be really the interest of the sport. The interest of the sport is not the end game, I guess, right now. Not at all. You can just be, you can see, I mean, you can see it through the way this has gone. There are many, so I'm sorry to interrupt Sharda, but there are many instances over the past, let's say 10 years since the AFF has had a commercial partner, right? That many key decisions of the Federation were not taken for footballing reasons, but were taken for commercial reasons, right? Whatever they might be, whether it's a broadcasting schedule, the schedule of the IPL elections in the country, 100 reasons, right? At none of those stages, let's look at the women's team. Since we are talking about how much we care about women's sport all of a sudden, right? We hosted the AFC Asian Cup for women. It was the first time in a long time that India was competing at that level. We had a realistic chance of qualifying for the World Cup. It would have been the first India team to have done that, right? What happened instead, we had a bio-bubble bridge as the host nation. That's the level of care we extended to our team. No other team was impacted by COVID-19 in that tournament. Only India, which had its own hotel, separate arrangements and was the host nation so taking care of itself, I'm guessing, right? The IWL was postponed time and again during the pandemic, even though two men's leagues happened multiple times in bio-secure bubbles, right? This is despite FIFA releasing tranches of money that were meant specifically for women's sport to continue to function and be supported, right? So this is a track record of, let's say, the federation that controls football in India. At none of these stages, right? Did anyone jump in and say, that there's something wrong here? Somebody else needs to come in. The court has taken, let's say, not so much over through petitioners taken cognitions of, that they are not going there. And there's a plan in place for the country, right? A template for all sports federations to function in India. So who is the third party that is interfering? Is it FIFA or is it the court? These are some of the questions that we need to be asking also as fans, as participants in this process and as, you know, especially as people who consume this circus of football. Like Sharda is likely saying, nobody is bothered really about this tournament happening, right? One week ago, the same organization that has banned us has done an event where one of their global ambassadors has traveled all the way to New Delhi to launch tickets for this tournament. One week ago. You didn't know what was going on, right? Third party interference. No, no, no. This is horribly cynical. It's horribly cynical. And I need to realise that all this can be seen through. It's not over a veil of opacity, the fog of war in which they operate. Yeah, given the, you know, situation, the dire situation right now, I think that, you know, having representation of players is actually quite important. It makes a lot of sense. Whether it makes sense or not, we are not debating what the law is, right? If the law of the land, if the national sports court says that there should be clear representation, then that's it. End of story. Why should anyone, right? If the government of India, when today the United States makes a statement saying, oh, India is taking a convenient stance on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. And the Minister of External Affairs comes out and says, we have the right to have an independent and sovereign foreign policy, right? We make interest in the benefits of paraphrasing policy, right? So similarly, why should a national sports federation, a federation whose responsibility it is to run football in this country, give that to someone else, right? Or even like, sure, we can have conversations, we can have dialogue. If he has best practices, let us see those best practices, right? If I know... Sharda, what is the reasoning for this? Sharda, what is the reasoning for this, you know, for them to not want the player representation? Insecurity, fundamentally, you know, because these organizations, state associations, they are very old-standing sort of people that are there. Well, meaning people, you know, I'm not saying that they're all evil geniuses. Some of them are well-meaning, some of them do great work in the states in which they work. To have someone else come in, will they be better? Will they shout out to me to who I am, what I do? That's what seems to really get people shaken up. When this whole discussion was happening about how many players are we going to get on the executive council that they're going to have a vote, people started talking about, let Baichang Bhutya stand as president, you know, that kind of thing. Now you're seeing in the example of cricket, they're having even a very highly regarded athlete as your president, doesn't mean that you'll push towards greater governance, but the point is at least give that a chance, you know? It is almost like you're saying, wait, this is our Dukan and nobody else can be in charge of this Dukan. Nobody else can come in and say we can run this Dukan. It's a sports governance people that ministers, politicians, bureaucrats, that whole business people, that whole sort of coterie in that sense. And they don't want players to come because I think Siddhant's point about the player unions getting a say and getting a voice and getting a vote is hugely important in sport. In India, you don't have player unions. The footballers I think are the only ones that have- And they're usually impactful as well, yeah. Absolutely, the footballers I think are the only ones that have some kind of a union that is able to argue about rights or you know, about some money for players that are having injuries or whatever it is. By the way, these are, and we are supposed to, so that is also a violation of some kind of FIFA code. Because for example, in the case of football, FIFA Pro is the world union that represents professional football players, right? Everywhere, yeah, everywhere, yeah. And it is part of a national association's responsibilities. It's not written in the statutes, but there's some understanding between FIFA Pro and FIFA that this is the official union and they are sort of recognized as legitimate and real. So therefore, each of the member nations should also have a representative council of voting because at the end of the day, in their labour, you're making profit or whatever you're making, whatever system you're making, whatever you're doing, right? So they need to be, I think, voiced and... At the end of the day, it is the players only, right? It's getting impacted. Yeah, that's all right. So many players we approach to talk on this show, not so many, but a few, right? Rightly so, either they are still playing or they have their coaches or they are somehow in different ways associated with the sport, right? Now, when the case is so complicatedly litigious, right, and you have so many sides to the story, everyone is quite naturally and expectedly confused. So players are unwilling even though we might have a union, right? Unwilling to say that this is what is best for the well-being of the players on whose side you are building this sport, whether they are men or women. They are not even able to say anything. Yeah, so at the end, I want to give you the opportunity, right? At the end, I don't want to give you the opportunity of debunking some of the misinformation that you were talking about that is right on social media, if you want to talk about that. No, actually, if there are any questions, we can take them. But otherwise, I mean, the thing, there is one bit of chatter that I saw about Rafaul Patel and him voting against India at FIFA being the equivalent of India's ambassador to the UN voting against India on a resolution. That is not what happened and that's not how the system works. This unanimous ban or suspension, which, by the way, are the same thing, because a suspension in effect means that you are banned from participating in anything, so it's a ban. This suspension was decided on unanimously by the Bureau of the Council of FIFA. The Bureau of the Council consists of seven people as far as the statutes of FIFA are concerned. That is the president, this is de facto, right? The president and the president of the six other confederations, so the AFC, Konka Gav, Konnabol, Gav, etc. Those seven people form the Bureau. So because Rafaul Patel is not the president of the AFC, he's not a de facto member and because he has a conflict of interest anyway, he could not have been nominated by the AFC as the voting member. So it's not that he went to FIFA and voted against his own team, but no doubt the matter has been brought to attention and FIFA is taking action, again, not so motto because it has been brought to the notice of FIFA by people who are members of FIFA in some way or the other, that is their job. They are mandated to step FIFA, if someone is harassing us in our house, then they will tell us the rent of your house, won't they? So that's what's happening basically. Yeah, also very quickly, I've written about this that the current world of football is going to be played in Qatar. Right, now they are very contentious, they are being held for in the European winter for the first time, whatever. Obviously there is a third party involved when Qatar won the right to stage the World Cup, it's not just the Qatar Football Association, it's the entire Qatari government, it's the royal family. So what are you talking about third party events? Same for everyone, Barack Obama endorsed the US's campaign for that very same World Cup and that's why America was so angry and an investigation was launched into corruption. The Department of Justice was left in arms that he didn't give America, how did he give Qatar? How is this possible? This is not fair. Yeah, exactly. Final thoughts Sharda and Bhai Chung Bhutia after this news of the ban came to light. On his social media he said that of course his ban is very very unfortunate but he said that this is finally an opportunity for the AIFF to finally get things in order, finally get their house in order. Do you agree with that? It is, what they will do with this opportunity I don't know, whether they will just use it to sort of fortify their defences for the future that's what the cynic in me is looking at saying that this is what they are going to try and do because I think because Indian sports and sports federation are in such a legal bind now that everyone is fighting for their turf. So I think they will still try and protect their turf and they will try and gloss over a lot of things. I mean if it could be revolutionized and a new person could take over who is, no one is a messiah in sports administration but someone with a little bit more, almost with football and focus rather than their own position then it will be a big deal. And as for what Biting has said you are just saying let's hope what he wants happens and comes true and that there is a change but I am telling you the cynic in me is just shaking my head and saying these guys are uncrushable, they absolutely shameless. Don't say that Sharda, be skeptical but avoid the cynicism. Final thoughts. Yeah, you know, final thoughts. My spot is dealing with Saurav Ganguly as BCC chief, what are you saying? No, no, actually it's just an idea thing, I mean we were talking about this earlier in the afternoon also that even with the Indian Olympic Association there is nothing like that. Yesterday Delhi High Court heard a few things which even takes this conversation forward. So it deals with now the entire Olympic fraternity as such. So now the Commonwealth Games are over and everyone has celebrated India's performance and 60 plus medals etc. So it's important and time to talk about it. That house is in as much of a mess and so if the Delhi High Court for example is following the precedent set by the Supreme Court of India in issuing the kind of instructions it's essentially appointed the same process over committee of administrators to relook at the constitution, hold fresh elections and start the process again. Two of the members of that committee of administrators are former chief election commissioner Dr. S. Vaikureshi and retired Justice Anil Gavi. The very same who are on the committee. You would just say that you would be the same people because they would be busy. You would want them to focus on one sport rather than on the right. But Shaila the point is the same in the understanding of the structure and the court. The modalities of the functioning of the sport no doubt would be different but you are not writing a handbook for how sport is being run. You are just writing a constitution based on which this body is to be elected and the longest actually part of the constitution itself is the process of those elections. How it will end, what will be the electoral college, it goes into several parts. Whereas the statement that the interest of the players is done in one line. It doesn't require several parts and several articles etc. So these are some of the questions that I hope and people are saying on the chat that Akash Bainerji and Dhruv Rathee I assume these are the world famous YouTubers of our planet are talking about the subject. Hopefully they have also done a bit of research and they are figuring out what actually is going on and just a knee-jerk reaction to like India must be un-banned because we must also question what are the wider forces at least. So Siddharth we can end our discussion right? We can I think unless there are any questions. Now I am using myself just banned politicians. Come on Siddharth how do you see the accountability of FSDR for this crisis? That is a question. I think it's fundamental actually this entire process has started from the signing of that master rights agreement. We were around covering the same beat in 2010 when it was happening, 2011 when it was happening and the same discussions were held then that there are ways in which these are done even if one is saying that you have to establish some kind of Sarkari model. Because actually he was saying that at this time this Sarkari model should have been everything should be private like shiny, bright and coming from the west. So you should go from a private model which has been made by football leagues in the world whether it be English League or Spanish League etc. All of these leagues already have established a way of functioning in which there is some semblance of all of at least the participants being on the same table. Here we are creating a structure, the base of our structure is that one person owns the entire ship. Now when that person decides that it changes their mind, what happens then? That's where we are starting. Now that person is unsure whether to open up this world and allow the rest to come in or to try and keep the arc pristine. And so there are lots of conversations around money should come in, investment should come in all of these things should happen. No one is denying the force of history. But you are saying you are taking best practices based on FIFA statutes and how leagues are on the world function. Then please tell me which other league is owned by a single entity and where the broadcaster which is the prime source of revenue. So how do you tell us in the IPL if the broadcaster owns the league how did we earn 18,000, 50,000 crores? Exactly, exactly. There are many flaws in the IPL but it's franchise model of funding and all that seems to be the one that is most efficient and the most profitable in that sense. We are able to make it work. It's copied from how things are done. From the US model that after 5 years you will get so much and now there's money coming in and so on. The football one is just bizarre. It also doesn't work. We have seen how much people have tried to develop. In Delhi there are dozens of football clubs, more in fact. How many of them get counter fan base and ISL team started here. How many people attended those games? More people attended North East United games. Let me ask you both a question and it comes to Indian football. Is it too much money or too less money? There is no such thing as too much money in Indian sport in that sense. Outside of cricket actually there is no such thing as too much money in anything. But you would just want there is too little expertise and there is too little professionalism in the administration of Indian football. That is my two sentence. I think too much too soon. We went very quickly from having nothing at all and I am not saying this from a super silly point of view. But overnight the budgets of clubs to exist and to play. Why does a club start? Because it is allowed to participate in competitions I am assuming. It has its own members. There are members of other clubs. They play against each other. That is the very purpose of a football club. Now if you put a condition on that that you will only be able to play when you give us 10 crore or 100 crore rupees or 100 rupees of fees. So automatically you are excluding a ton of people. And that is not the case. And Priyathu this creation of this league what it did also at the same time what happened very slowly was almost a decimation of leagues across the country states, smaller levels. So whatever was the skeleton on which you were playing your football. I think our fans should not forget. Our fans I am saying like we have hordes of them. As in 420 all the loyal viewers and listeners and readers we were a country that was competitive in Asian football in the 60s and then through the first half of the 70s. And professionalism so we had the structures, we had cultures you had this happening but this has been decimated and you brought this little nice bubblegum sort of model and you put switched on television and said let's football. So that's what happened. Absolutely. And we barely qualified for the Asia Cup as well. That is another long story. You summed it up. These things need to be looked at in a broader context and beyond just emotionality. Because otherwise if anyone wants to do what they are doing let them carry on it's fine. Might as well have all leagues everywhere. I think and again maybe I am overstepping but for most broadcasters as well as organizers having sports events in a bio bubble is a dream. Provided there is no life threatening virus outside of course. If you were to take the virus out of the equation these guys would have all events in controlled environments because the variables reduce that much and it makes life so much easier. So in any case, the money is coming from your TV by and large. And Manchester United has as many fans as England but to get to that stage first there has to be a connect between all the people involved in the sport and in India that opportunity is still very limited to pockets. So until then this idea of having big leagues is great and no doubt there has to be a national league but reality has to come into play in terms of where we are and what can be a more sustainable model not what can be a model image only billionaires can afford to put teams in. Yeah, yeah. Let's end on that note Siddhan, what do you think? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I want to thank all of our viewers who are watching our live discussion. Thank you so much for taking our time and doing that. Thank you so much Sharda. Thank you so much Siddhan for having me on the show as well and it has been very, very informative very, very insightful this discussion. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for being the same voice and the moderation on the session. Much, much, much needed. Thank you very much. At very short notice as well. So really happy to have you here. And for our loyal fans like Sharda said we'll be back guys with some kind of something sometime soon. Some kind of something sometime soon. That's a classic 420 grand sort of slogan. Some kind of something sometime soon. Yeah, some kind of something. Yeah. Thank you everyone. Thank you guys. Stay safe. Thank you.